Management & Operations

Northern California debuts 'hip hop' voter bus

[IMAGE]voter-bus-full.jpg[/IMAGE] Alameda County and Oakland-based AC Transit are hitting the road with a voter registration bus that’s been re-designed to draw more potential voters — particularly young adults — into the elections process.

AC Transit and Alameda County are setting out to register as many voters as possible, using a voter registration bus with an eye-catching, “hip hop’’ design.

The bus will travel throughout the county to make registering to vote for the November election as easy as possible.

The 40-foot bus was officially unveiled at a kickoff event at the Alameda County Administration Building. It won rave reviews from Alameda County supervisors, hip-hop spoken word artists and a host of young people, some of whom actually boarded the bus to register to vote.

The exterior of the bus — with individual images of young people and the theme, “Your Voice. Your Power. Your Choice. Your Vote’’ — was created after consultations with youth groups interested in updating the bus in ways that would attract a younger demographic.

The spacious bus is equipped with chairs and tables to allow potential voters to complete registration forms in a comfortable place.

Rows of passenger seats have been removed to provide voters with extra space. In addition, there is a lift on the bus to provide handicapped access.

During Ron Kilcoyne’s tenure, the Eugene, Ore.-based LTD achieved several important milestones, including the start of construction along the West Eugene EmX, being named APTA’s Best Midsized Transit Agency, and ranking among the top 20 transit agencies for efficiency.

In his resignation letter, David Armijo said his “goal of providing safe, reliable and sustainable transit service in the East Bay has been accomplished.” Armijo’s resignation is effective immediately.

Michael D. Griffus is the former chief executive of Keolis Transit America, a Los Angeles-based company that manages transit and rail operations across North America, while Susan Dreier is currently serving as chief operating officer at Ore.’s Salem-Keizer Transit.

The new modules will allow MST’s employees to access various functionalities over the Web, including bidding on work and vacation choices, and make it easier for the agency to establish run times, produce detailed itineraries with accurate distance calculations and automatically format schedules suitable for posting at each stop.